Malaysians waffling on Flight 370's communications timeline

Malaysian authorities are backtracking on a crucial detail about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, saying it’s unclear whether the pilot’s final verbal handoff happened after one of the plane’s data links was severed.

Over the weekend, Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s defense minister and acting transportation minister, had said the plane’s Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System was disabled at 1:07 a.m. March 8, shortly before someone in the cockpit told air traffic control, “All right, good night.” At the time, that appeared to be a strong clue that the pilots were complicit in the plane’s disappearance, or perhaps were acting under duress.

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But Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said today that authorities don’t know exactly when ACARS was disabled, according to The New York Times. The system, which transmits updates on a regular schedule, made its last transmission at 1:07 a.m. The next transmission should have occurred at 1:37, but did not. The pilot’s last communication was at 1:19 a.m.

“We don’t know when the ACARS system was switched off,” he said. Hishammuddin, who was standing next to Ahmad Jauhari, “waved off numerous questions” about the discrepancy, saying his previous statement was “based on fact, corroborated and verified.”